It is none of my
business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether it
is voted down or voted up. Do you suppose, after the pledges of my honor
that I would go for that principle and leave the people to vote as they
choose, that I would now degrade myself by voting one way if the
slavery clause be voted down, and another way if it be voted up? I care
not how that vote may stand.... Ignore Lecompton; ignore Topeka; treat
both those party movements as irregular and void; pass a fair bill--the
one that we framed ourselves when we were acting as a unit; have a fair
election--and you will have peace in the Democratic party, and peace
throughout the country, in ninety days. The people want a fair vote.
They will never be satisfied without it.... But if this constitution is
to be forced down our throats in violation of the fundamental principle
of free government, under a mode of submission that is a mockery and
insult, I will resist it to the last."
Walker, the fourth Democratic governor who had now been sacrificed to
the interests of the Kansas pro-slavery cabal, also wrote a sharp letter
of resignation denouncing the Lecompton fraud and policy; and such was
the indignation aroused in the free States, that although the Senate
passed the Lecompton Bill, twenty-two Northern Democrats joining their
vote to that of the Republicans, the measure was defeated in the House
of Representatives.
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